Confessions of a Recovering Cathoholic

If you haven't noticed, there are some new ads showing up quite often on television featuring real people who had drifted away from the Catholic Church and-apparently unable to deal with using their own brains-have returned to the fold. Included in these ads is a call for viewers to go to the Web site, CatholicsComeHome.org. This ad is aimed at people like me who were once Catholics but at some point in our lives came to our senses and drifted-hell, more like ran!-away.

This sudden desperate attempt to pull lapsed Catholics back to the Church is undoubtedly motivated by money. When you're having to shell out millions to victims of sexually abusive priests, you lose not only lots of money, but also some of the flock. But I left long before it became apparent that the Catholic Church was an enabler of child abusers. I left because this rich and powerful organization insisted on telling me I was a bad person who needed to be saved. That's the same BS line all religions use, but none do it better than the Catholic Church.

Whenever anyone asks me what my religion is, I always say I am a recovering Cathoholic. I just say this for laughs because in truth I recovered immediately the day I exclaimed,"This religion crap is a flaming pile of shit!" That was moments after Sister Mary Buzzkill looked up with the permanent scowl she had etched on her face and told me and my classmates that "touching yourself down there"-her delicate way of saying "waxing your carrot"-was a sin. Okay, I didn't actually yell out the words, "This religion crap is a flaming pile of shit!" in the middle of my catechism class, but I was definitely thinking it VERY LOUDLY!

Of course several years prior to that day-when I was way too young to make intelligent, rational decisions-I had actually thought I wanted to be a priest. I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking-maybe I dug the idea of having a job in which I could wear a robe all day or maybe it was the smell of incense-but as a youngster, I had announced to my family that I was going to devote my life to standing at the altar and incoherently babbling Latin and doing all the other mumbo jumbo priests were doing back in the 60s. This ambition lasted until the day puberty kicked in-which for me was about the age of six-and I realized girls had some neat bumps and curves under their clothes that I definitely wanted to explore. The idea of a life in which I wasn't allowed to touch any of those neat bumps and curves suddenly seemed like a really stupid idea. So I dropped the whole priest thing and decided a career that involved looking at girls-if there was such a career-would be right up my alley. I later found out that looking at girls was a non-paying job, but the benefits are far better than a life of celibacy-so I think I made the right career choice.

My parents being good Italian-Americans made sure my siblings and I were indoctrinated from day one by putting us through all the Roman Catholic rituals and hocus pocus designed to magically save us from eternity in Hell. My parents weren't hard core-we'd miss Mass fairly often-but they made sure we went through the same crap their parents made them go through. We were baptized as babies, had our first Holy Communion in second grade and were confirmed at age ten. And through it all, we had the usual propaganda drilled into our tiny heads every week at catechism by ugly, angry nuns who undoubtedly hated their miserable lives and detested kids. They did seem to delight in telling us what terrible people we were and how our only hope of ever getting to Heaven was through the Catholic Church, otherwise we'd burn in Hell for eternity-nice things to teach little kids who are still too young to wipe their own asses without getting poop on their fingers.

Oh how I hated catechism! Every Wednesday after school, we were bused to our Parrish to be fed some of the most absurd BS stories designed to scare us into being good little Catholic robots. This was during the height of the Cold War and communism was used by the Church as another tool to control us. We didn't know what communism was, nor did we care-we just knew those awful Russians were commie bastards and so it had to be something bad. I recall Sister Buzzkill telling us that if the Russians were to ever take over our beloved country and break into our classroom and ask us if we were Christians, we would go to hell if we said no, but if we said yes, we would die martyrs. Since I didn't know what the hell a martyr was and the whole dying thing sounded bad, I made up my mind that "no" would be the prudent answer. "Hell, if the communists don't believe in God, that means commie kids don't have to sit through this mind-numbing BS. I could be home watching The Three Stooges," I thought. "Better Red than dead!"

This was also during the period when eating meat on Friday was a sin. Where the hell this ridiculous superstition came from is beyond me, but even more astounding is that people were stupid enough to believe it! But I did, and with that little bit of information drilled into my head by my catechism handlers, I was certain my father was going straight to Hell one Friday when I caught him eating a salami sandwich. "Dad, what are you doing? It's Friday!" My dad just smiled and my mom made up some kind of excuse that it was okay because all we had in the house was lunchmeat and God would be forgiving because Dad was hungry. Yep, that's what religion is all about my friends: Making a little kid believe his dad is going to burn in Hell over a salami sandwich. Jeez Dad, if you're gonna be damned for eternity, make it a steak!

And then there was confession. In order to receive communion on Sunday, you had to confess your sins to a priest and then perform penance. This supposedly wiped your slate clean and you were now worthy of gagging down that awful, dry host that was magically turned into the body of Christ by the amazing Father Kreskin. Of course, being a kid, what kinds of sins did I have to tell? So I had to make up stuff just to have something to say. Technically I was committing a sin by lying to the priest in confession! Then he'd tell me to say five Hail Marys and four Our Fathers and to do an Act of Contrition-I never did know the words to that one!-and then I could go home and return to my life of debauchery for another week.

But eventually I did make it through the whole Catholic indoctrination ritual designed to turn me into a good little Catholic who would grow up to raise a bunch of good little Catholics of my own and put money in the basket every Sunday so the Pope could buy a taller hat. But the Church didn't count on the fact that all the time they attempted to burn their nonsense into my head, my parents were raising their kids to be questioning and logical people. And questioning and logical people are the last thing organized religion wants. It's hard to tell a person he has to engage in some stupid ritual at this time on this day or he won't get to Heaven when that questioning, logical person will say, "Excuse me, but how the hell do you know? And how do you know there's a heaven? And how do you know what God wants? And how do you even know there is a God? And Dude, why the hell would you give up chicks to do this crap anyway? What are you nuts?"

And of course they never have answers to any questions about anything to do with religion except "It's God's will," and "God works in mysterious ways," and "It says so in the Bible," and "God loves you," and "Just make that check out to..." and all the other meaningless phrases organized religion has given us since the first hucksters realized they could become rich and powerful feeding off the fear, guilt and stupidity of humans.

So sorry Catholic Church, I'm one stray who isn't coming home. I eat whatever I want whenever I want. I don't confess my sins to an intermediary and I don't recite magic words to clean my slate. If the Big Guy in the Sky is listening, I'll talk directly to Him, thank you.

And I'll touch myself down there if I want to.